finding wonderland
by copesetic
Summary: Do you feel like you have no hope left? Are you still trying to find yourself? Welcome to Wonderland, have a nice trip. / Coppertone Wars Christmas Exchange / for Rachel /


**Notes | **MERRY CHRISTMAS, BITCHES! (for those of you who have seen RENT). if not, hi guys! no i am not some random person. i am still nicole; this is just an alt account where i write exchanges and whatnot (and hope to abide by people's demands).

**Dedication |** to rachel, hope the fat man left you something good under the tree!

**Pairings |** um, no pairings really. i saw you wanted either dylan or kristen centric. i went with the former.

**Prompts |** gingerbread cookies, chandeliers, "people throw rocks at things that shine" (taylor swift; _ours_), & finger hearts

**Warnings |** alternate universe, dramatic elements, ooc moments

**Disclaimer** ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAAAAAAS IS… toowntheCliquebyLisiHarrison

* * *

Where did all the time go?

It seemed like just yesterday she was playing Would You Rather, trading secrets and making finger hearts with her four best friends. The adults always asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" but all the kids just gave them blanks stares as if they never even gave it a thought. Was it really a façade they pulled and they have actually known since preschool? Or maybe she was just absent the day everyone was picking career choices out of a hat. Either way, it suddenly seemed like Dylan Marvil was the only person in the world that didn't have her life figured out.

Her friends always seemed to have talents and goals that would make them go far in life.

Alicia was probably at Julliard, perfecting her grand jetés and pirouettes so she could eventually make it on Broadway. Or she was following in her father's footsteps and attending Harvard Law School.

Kristen was probably at some other Ivy League College, moments away from finding a cure for cancer.

Claire was probably going to some photography school or getting casted in a new indie film after knowing of her acting skills in Dial L for Loser.

Massie, with her eclectic self, was probably a star equestrian, winning ribbon after ribbon with her white stallion Brownie, designing clothes for British celebrities, or becoming the first women president.

And then there was Dylan—playing out these scenarios in her head because she had nothing better to do.

Something was wrong with this picture. After high school, she was supposed to escape into the unknown where she would call out all the shots. But why set herself up for failure? She could imagine all those college administrators laughing their heads off, wondering how someone could get so many Ds and still get promoted to the next grade. It's not to say she didn't have an interest in learning. She just doesn't see when she was going to use geometry in real life, unless she became a carpenter.

It was official, she had no future so what was the point of wasting space.

.

Advil had many uses—treating fevers, cramps and stopping your heart. Outside the convenient store, a boy with a familiar face—dark hair, blue-green eyes—leaned on the glass window in front of the store. If Dylan's memory served her right, it was Landon Crane, except with dilated pupils.

"Do you remember me?" Dylan asked.

"Yes, I remember you." He said in a languid voice. "You dated my friend, Luke, a couple of years ago. Why did you guys break up?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I was just dating him for the wrong reasons."

"What are you doing with those?" he pointed to the Advil pills.

Dylan stammered, thinking light on her feet as she tried to find an excuse that wasn't _I'm trying to kill myself._

"Ah, I see what you're doing." he handed her a plastic bag full of purple capsules.

"What are these?"

"Never mind what they are. The question is what do they do?" He gestured for her to lean in closer. "The effects are life changing. Tell you what, I'll give you these and I'll get rid of those Advils for you."

She took the capsules and went on to use them as soon as she got home.

.

Maybe it was the effect of the drugs, but all of a sudden it seemed as if Dylan was transported into some Technicolor woods. Colors became saturated and she noticed a subtle change in her mood, almost ecstatic. _This is how I want to feel for the rest of my life,_ Dylan thought, _maybe it's about time I stopped and smell the…white rabbit?_

A furry rodent in a red waistcoat hastily hopped its way around the woods. He seemed to be in a hurry for something, but what? Curious to find out more, Dylan ran and followed his trail of footsteps but it was not use. He was so fast she couldn't keep up with him, eventually losing him. Panting, she stopped to take a breath by a nearby tree.

"You seem lost. Are you looking for something?" a pair of two yellow eyes just above a tree next to her asked.

"I'm trying to find a white rabbit." she said wearily.

Slowing, his whole body appeared revealing fur resembled that of a tabby (albeit a purple one). He had a grin on his face that stretched from ear to ear. What were these cats called again? Cheshire Cats, yes! "A white rabbit?" the Cheshire Cat cackled, "That's what they all say. Child, you are wasting your time."

Dylan just ignored him. It wasn't like her to take advice from a cat. She continued to follow the trail of footsteps when a large table caught her eye (because it was highly unusual to see tables in the middle of the woods).

It was covered by a light pink table cloth and a plethora of porcelain tea cups and pots. Two figures –a short man with a large top hat and a brown hare—shared the table by the selves.

"Would you care for tea?" Top Hat (known by others as the Mad Hatter) asked the hare.

**[**…**]**

_In the days of swing sets and tree houses, nine-year-old Dylan's only worry was complete boredom. With her mom busy hosting a popular talk show and her two sister tackling the drama that was middle school and high school, there was only one person who would spend time with her and that was her dad, Trent Marvil. One of Dylan's favorite father-daughter pastimes were tea parties._

_"Dylan," Trent chuckled, raising one of his daughter's play tea cups, "you're supposed to fill these with tea, not orange soda."_

_"But, Daddy, I don't like tea. And orange soda taste better." She drained the cup in a single gulp. The fizziness burned her throat as she wiped her damp lips on her sleeve._

_Make fun all you want, but Dylan's father was her best friend. And he truly enjoyed spending time with his quirky little daughter. He was all she had since she didn't really have many friends at school. One would think, being a daughter of a celebrity, Dylan could make friends easily. But once people knew who her mother was, it was plastered in their minds that she was some conceited brat that was hard to get along with. It seemed as if anything that made you different from everybody else made you weird._

…

_Slamming doors and bickering was usually the background music to the Marvil home. Trent and Merri-Lee have been fighting ever since Merri-Lee's show took off. They usually would repeat the same things, phrases like "You're not the same women I married" and "You don't understand how time consuming my job is." But after a while their three daughters got used to it. You might even say it was comforting._

_Because it was proof that Trent Marvil was still a part of their dysfunctional family._

…

_After school one day, Merri-Lee took her daughters out for ice cream (which was highly unusual if you knew Merri-Lee). She said she wanted to spend a little more time with them that day and get to know what was happening in school—grades, new crushes, upcoming events. _

_By the time they got back home it was almost seven. The only thing odd was the dead silence, which meant their dad wasn't home yet. Dylan was about to question if he was stuck in traffic, but she didn't really give it a second thought._

_"Where's Dad?" Jaime finally spoke up._

_"He went on a trip." Merri-Lee said hesitantly._

_"When will he be back?"_

_"I don't know." Her mother was quick to answer and after that no one said a word._

_A week had past and still no sign of her dad. Dylan could barely sleep with so many thoughts racing through her head. It almost made tears leak through her eyes that her mom didn't even know when he was coming back (because mothers knew everything)._

_"Ryan," Dylan peered into her eldest sister's room and jumped on her bed, "where's Daddy? He hasn't come back, what if something happened to him?"_

_Ryan grudgingly sat up in her bed and harshly told her sister, "Dad doesn't live here anymore, okay? He left because he doesn't love us anymore—not mom, not you, not me, not Jaime, none of us! Now go back to bed." and with that she turned to her side and pulled the cover over her head._

_Dylan could barely process the information. He couldn't have just left the house—he was part of the family. And didn't families work out their differences, bounce back them and come out stronger. She suddenly she wondered, all the piggy pack rides and trips to amusement parks, were they all a lie?_

…

_If nobody else could make her wishes come true than surely Santa would, because Santa always knew how to make kids happy. Dylan didn't ask for much that Christmas; all she wanted was for her parents to get back together so everything could go back to the way it should have been and she could have a normal family just like everyone else._

_That was the year she realized Santa wasn't real._

_And that was the start of the loss of all simplicity._

** [**…**]**

Dylan shook her head. This place brought back too many memories.

"Something troubling you?" Cheshire Cat appeared out of nowhere, following Dylan on her trek through the woods.

"Nothing, it's just that place reminds me of my parents' divorced. I mean, yes, my mom is practically engaged to her job. So, it almost seemed like she was cheating on her husband the whole time. But does that mean he had to leave the house. By doing that he divorced all of us." She suddenly felt a wave of rage encasing her.

"Sometimes things don't work out between parents." Cheshire Cat reassured.

"But, what happened to 'until death do us part'?"

"Hey, parents aren't perfect. And whatever happened between them had nothing to do with you."

The wave subsided, "I've never thought of it that way."

.

Dylan must have walked five miles without seeing a sign of the waistcoat-wearing rodent. She did, however, eye a large caterpillar that was sitting on top of a mushroom, smoking a hookah.

"Who. Are. You?" he drawled.

Dylan contemplated this question for almost a minute. It definitely was an intriguing conversation starter. "I'm still trying to figure that out."

**[**…**]**

_Thirteen-year-old Dylan stared longingly into her bedroom mirror. She had just found out that Kemp Hurley, the guy she liked since fifth grade, never truly reciprocated her feelings and only asked her out on a dare. She received his confession via text an hour prior to their date to the movies, leaving an anxious Dylan alone with no plans on a Saturday night. To alleviate her misery, she asked her older sister, Jaime, to teach her how to straighten her unruly curls and apply makeup, thinking her lack of a ladylike appearance was part of the problem._

_"Jaime," Dylan sighed, "why don't boys like me?"_

_"Don't you worry your pretty little mind," Jaime quoted Taylor Swift's Ours as she put a reassuring hand on her sister's shoulder. "People throw rocks at things that shine."_

_"I still don't get it."_

_Jaime lightly tapped her button nose. "They're just jealous. You're intimidating to them."_

_Intimidating. For some reason that word didn't seem to make her feel any better._

_She wasn't intimidating in an Alicia way, where she had exotic looks and a newly developed chest that could make the boys stare from a distance. She wasn't intimidating in a Kristen way, where she could easily fit in with the guys with her tomboyishness, but can beat them up in a second if they messed with her. No, Dylan was intimidating in the worse way –she laughed at her own jokes, had no indoor voice and was constantly bumping into things. In other words, repulsive._

_"Do you think mom is still mad at me for ruining her show?" she cringed as a slideshow of the day's events rolled in her mind. After hearing her mom was having Abby Boyd and Hadley Durk on her show, the two biggest teen stars in Hollywood, she asked her friends if they would like to come along. But during a gossip session about the stars in the bathroom, she had discovered her mom's co-host was in there the whole time (as well as having her microphone on).Needless to say, it didn't turn out well and made Hadley quit their upcoming movie, Dial L for Loser._

_"Mom is not mad at you; she's a busy woman. So when it seems like she's angry she's just frustrated because it could cost her ratings." In a way, it seemed as though Jaime was glad for Dylan's failure. Since their mother barely had any time to pay attention to her daughters, the girls (mainly Jaime and Ryan) always tried to outdo each other to win their mother's affection. At least Ryan was upfront about it. Jaime tried to act like a good sister, but that couldn't hide the fact she was fighting for attention too._ _They usually showered their mom with their accomplishments like Jaime being inducted into National Honors Society or Ryan winning prom queen._

_Dylan was good at things too, even if they were a bit unconventional. But was her mom really going to be proud of the fact that she could burp on command? Well, at least the kids at school thought it was funny. Dylan didn't mind going out of her way to make people laugh. She knew first-hand what the feeling of sadness could do to a person and didn't want anyone else to go through the same thing. _

_Maybe it was true what they said. That people who were the funniest were usually the saddest. Humor was sort of a coping mechanism. It kept people in her life at a distance (because everybody else in the world was too selfish to hear about her problems). The more goofy and self-deprecating she was in public, the least she was likely to collapse in tears. But was that really going to be her purpose in life, making other people happy while she was still trying to console her own self._

**[**…**]**

Finally catching up to the white rabbit, she then found herself in a long hall, lit up by a row of chandeliers. The end of the wall was blocked by a door, a very small door, which the rabbit successfully went through but Dylan could barely fit.

"You see that table over there." The doorknob (who was oddly talking to her) directed her attention to a small round table. "There's a glass bottle you can drink from to make you shrink."

She took the little glass bottle and examined it thoughtfully, seeing if it was some kind if poison. Nothing suspicious, so she took a sip. The room started to get bigger as she relived the perspective of her kindergarten self going into a classroom on the first day of school. So if she jiggled the door handle it would have open, right? But the doorknob informed, "Oh, I forgot to tell you—I'm locked!" he chuckled, "but you could take one of those cookies to increase your size." A plate of gingerbread cookies appeared out of thin air. On top of the batch laid a little note, "Eat me!" it demanded.

**[**…**]**

_One thing was for sure, seventeen-year-old Dylan loved gingerbread cookies more than anything in the world. No seriously, her problems went away when she ate them –divorce, failing grades, the endless attempts to make her mother proud— they all seemed to melt away into a sweet and spicy goodness in her mouth. But the sensation only lasted a few seconds, which made Dylan want to eat more._

_The evidence started to show on her face, thighs and protruding stomach. It was Merri-Lee who suggested she go on a diet and mess with her daughter's head. Just about a year ago, she ate food without taking note of how many calories there were or comparing how much food was on her plate to her friends' plates. Did everybody get some memo before going to Starbucks that morning about ordering only tall vanilla lattes that Dylan wasn't aware about? Even Claire, little miss sweet tooth, had passed up on cinnamon buns and glazed doughnuts for the lone beverage. Dylan thought she would at least have had a buddy to pig out with. But then again, Claire never ate her feelings._

_"I don't want my daughter putting on too much weight." Merri-Lee suggested. But Dylan knew it most likely also had something to do with keeping up an image for the media. She thought about exercising but that takes time. Did anyone know how long it took Kristen to get those soccer calves? Dylan wanted to see progress right away and fast. Maybe then her mother would appreciate her more._

_"Can I ask you guys something?" Dylan swallowed the last of her gingerbread cookie as she washed it down with her grande hot chocolate. "Do you think my mom is going overboard on the whole weight thing?"_

_But the Alicia, Kristen and Claire just continued with their own conversation._

_The girls were always saying how much they loved having Dylan as a friend, but she knew the truth. It's the reason why Claire didn't invite her to her sweet sixteen. Things were so much different when Massie was around. If Dylan wanted to act crazy, Massie encouraged her craziness. If Dylan wanted to vent, Massie was there with and a warm, inviting shoulder. But during the summer between eighth and ninth grade, Massie moved to England which meant Dylan was stuck with the rest of the girls. She didn't have the same connection with them as she did with Massie. In fact, the only reason why she hung out with them was because they all had Massie as a mutual friend. And they were nothing like Massie; whenever she tried to vent to the rest of the girls, they just told her to shut up and stop being a crybaby._

**[**…**]**

After a session of growing and shrinking, Dylan finally caught up to the white rabbit as he led her through the Technicolor woods. However this time, the rabbit ended his journey leaping down into a dark, never-ending hole. Wherever that hole led to, he landed with a loud thud.

"I suggest you only choose that route if you want that to be your final decision ever." Cheshire Cat warned.

**[**…**]**

_ "Truth or Dare?" Dylan asked Massie on their last night together, before she shipped out to England. They were in Massie's kitchen, digging into some chocolate sundaes they made (yes, Dylan's mother would have voted against the sugary, calorie-oozing dessert, but she didn't care at that point)._

_"Truth." Massie said over a mouthful of ice cream. _

_"Are you happy?" Dylan had already anticipated the answer. Massie was the most popular girl in school, had decent grades and was the most experienced out of their group of friends when it came to boys. What more could that girl ask for?_

_But Massie proved her wrong, "Honestly no, I feel like a monster. I see the way people look at me in the hallways. I hear the names they call me. But it's not my fault, they made me like this. And I'm trying my best to make everyone happy, but sometimes I just feel like going up to people and punching them in the face. In a way, I'm glad I'm moving because I can't take all the pressure anymore."_

_Dylan finally spoke up, "You know how when you were younger, you're parents used to block all the R-rated channels and refrain from using curse words, thinking that they can keep up this charade that the world is one big Disney movie but it's not. We have to become damaged at some point in our lives. And once the damage is done, we think we can hide or escape from it, but we can't. It's just one big chip on our shoulders for the rest of our lives. And the Massie I know wouldn't just break down in public because she's strong and she knows things will get better."_

**[**…**]**

_I should really take my own advice more often,_ she thought. She backed away from the hole and turned back to the Cheshire Cat and she could tell they were both thinking the same thing. She didn't want to be like Landon resorting to drugs or the white rabbit collapsing at the end of the spiraling hole. She was still young and there was so much she had to live for.

.

The drugs wore off the next day. Yes, things were still a little odd, but she was sober nonetheless. Sober enough to realize her revelation.

It's easy to jump down a rabbit hole and escape to wonderland. But it's in reality where you truly shine. And in reality you have to find your own wonderland, through the trials and tribulations, because it's only when we embrace our past we actually move on.

And Dylan was truly ready to move on. That year, she only had one New Years resolution and that was to think positively. That way, she was ready for whatever this warped, twisted, unpredictable world had to offer her. In the end she did end up applying for college whether or not she would get in wasn't really on her mind at that point. She was just glad she was putting herself out there.

Right before mailing her college application, she kissed the envelope and putting it into the mailbox for good, hoping that maybe, just maybe, things would finally turn out right.


End file.
